Which Briefcase Full of Money Are You?

One of the promises of the blockbuster, whose production cost is usually included in marketing materials, is getting to see what a couple hundred million dollars looks like. But what about when actual currency shows up in front of the camera? Russian writer Viktor Pelevin has said that the main protagonist in contemporary cinema is a black briefcase full of money: the fates of all other characters depend on it. Cliched though it may be, the briefcase isn’t a singular character across different films. Like any protagonist, each briefcase has a personality all its own. What’s the briefcase full of money like? Is it ostentatious? Serene? Wily? Coy? Clad in a briefcase, money doesn’t travel like ordinary cash or credit: anonymous and blandly exchangeable. It takes on a shape and personality to boot, so viewers can sympathize with it, relate to it, or really get to know it.

Which revolutionary moment do you most identify with?

The Long March

The Sandinistas

May 68

Arab Spring

Spanish Civil War

The Paris Commune

The Haitian Revolution

Russia, 1917

Choose your favorite verb.

exchange

forget

smoke

ditch

save

avenge

How liked are you? (1=NOT, 6=VERY)

1

2

3

4

5

6

If you were handcuffed to an American president, which would it be?

Bill Clinton

Jimmy Carter

George Bush Jr.

LBJ

Eisenhower

Obama

Ronald Reagan

James K. Polk

What is the last digit of your SSN?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

0

Pick a philosopher.

Jean-François Lyotard

Judith Butler

Diogenes

Friedrich Nietzsche

Camille Paglia

Michel Foucault

Donna Haraway

Heidegger

Your Answer:

The Big Lebowski

You’re not fooling anyone. You look sleek, expensive, I mean it seems like you might be full of cash, but actually you’re just full of paper, the ultimate Macguffin in a charity embezzlement scheme. OK, you might fool a lazy bearded bum and a borderline-psychotic Vietnam vet, but only for a while, and in the end you’re no more valuable than a bowling bag full of dirty underwear. Sorry, the truth hurts, but you know how it goes: sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the bar eats you.

Repo Man

You’re an unimaginable force in the form of the trunk of a Chevy Malibu. You are not technically a briefcase, but you don’t mind. Unashamed of your weatherbeaten exterior, you possess mysterious and secretive power capable of vaporizing police, scientists and any punk dumb enough to open you up. What’s inside you? Is it the bodies of aliens as that one paranoid punk girl believes, or some sort of sinister government weapon? No matter. Sure, your essence may never be successfully removed like cash from a case. But what briefcase can claim, as you can, the power of its own supersession by turning itself into a spaceship and leaving Earth behind?

Drive

The total victory of style over substance, you’re not even a briefcase, you’re a bag, but damn if you’re not a sexy bag. You’re full of over a million dollars, but too many double crosses means the tedious moralist who stole you wants to give you back. What an idiot, right? He wont though, he looks too good holding you and driving you around, and silently thinking about getting rid of you. Even if you bring out the most boring kind of cruelty in everyone else, you bring out the prettiest aspect of your boring man. What else really matters?

American Hustle

Everyone can tell you’re full of money. You’re a sleazy, vulgar and obvious bribe, not nearly as sleek as you think you are. Only a cop could be dumb enough to think you would pass the smell test, but any mobbed up Italian New Jersey mayor can tell you mean trouble. Maybe you’re just a clumsy police plot, but so what? You don’t give a fuck, you’re full of cash, you’re on the winning side of history, and people inexplicably think you’re awesome.

True Romance

You’re so cool. Adventure, easy money and infinite trouble all at once, you look innocent enough, like you just might be full of Patricia Arquette’s clothes, but actually you’re full of pure white Columbian. Incredibly charismatic, you convince everyone you meet to drop everything and change their lives around you. One problem: you leave all your previous owners murderously jealous, willing to chase you across the country and kill everyone you’ve come into contact with. You’re the femme fatale of briefcases, a bad ass life-changing adventure that can lead to a gnarly exit wound or a life of love and happiness on the beach.

Kiss Me Deadly

You’re “the great whatsit,” a mysterious case that exudes such confidence that everyone around you thinks you’re incredibly valuable, even worth killing over. A small valise, sure, but you’re hot to the touch, which means you’re not full of money, but you’ve got to be worth a lot of it, right? Nope. Turns out your personality is radioactive: you’re so thoroughly the opposite of charming that when you get opened you immediately kill everyone around you. Don’t worry though, it’s not you, it’s history. You’re just a sloppy metaphor for Cold War nuclear anxiety.

Desperado

You’re the very definition of “Never judge a pile of money by its briefcase.” Because you’re not a briefcase, you’re a guitar case, and you’re not full of money, you’re full of guns, grenades, a rocket launcher, a flamethrower. I mean, guitars are cool, money is cool, but when it comes to the really pure masculinist fantasy of total power, guns > money > guitars. Who needs a guitar case full of money when you can have a guitar case full of murder? Exactly, no one.